Most economists surveyed expect economic conditions in Arkansas to remain the same in 2014, while a "sizable minority" expect to see some improvement from 2013. The predictions were released Thursday in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' "Burgundy Book" report on fourth-quarter 2013 economic conditions. According to the report, Fayetteville and Fort Smith saw employment growth stronger than the national average, while Little Rock and Texarkana saw weaker growth in the final quarter of 2013. The Little Rock Zone report, which includes all of the state except northeast Arkansas, showed manufacturing employment fell for the third consecutive year. The drop in 2013 was in part due to a significant drop in manufactured exports, the report said. While Little Rock saw a 0.3 percent drop in manufacturing and Arkansas saw a 0.2 percent drop, Fayetteville saw a 0.6 percent increase.

General Motors recalled 1.4 million cars in February, but new details and questions about the circumstances that led up to the recall are emerging every day. Here's what we know so far: What's the problem? The cars' ignition switch, where the key is inserted and turned to start the car, can easily be knocked out of the "Run" position into the "Off" or "Accessory" position. This can happen if the key is jostled by a driver's knee, for instance, or if the car hits a bumpy patch of road. The loss of power means the power breaking and steering, as well as the airbags, can stop working.

China's Twitter Weibo filed for an initial public offering Friday. The Beijing-based social media company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange and is looking to raise $500 million. Weibo, owned by Sina Corp. (SINA), was profitable for the first time in the last three months of 2013, raking in $3 million. The results were boosted by a 163% surge in ad revenues to $56 million. Most of the company's revenue comes from ads since it does not charge users, except for VIP memberships. Weibo has been growing -- active daily users numbered 61.4 million at the end of December, up from 58.9 million in September.

Cubestormer 3 is a robot with just one job—to solve a scrambled Rubik's Cube as swiftly as possible. Today, at the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham, UK, it did the task in an astounding 3.253 seconds, faster than any human or robot in the world. Just look at that thing go. The third-generation robot was built by co-inventors David Gilday and Mike Dobson for pure, blistering speed. The Samsung Galaxy S4 brain is tricked out with an Exynos octa-core processor, with four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 processors controlling eight Lego Mindstorms actuators. It's basically the SR-71 Blackbird of Rubik's Cube bots. Gilday said, "we knew Cubestormer 3 had the potential to beat the existing record but with the robot performing physical operations quicker than the human eye can see there's always an element of risk."